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Friday, April 25, 2008

"Let's fix this"

Going to Sweden for a year, I expected cultural differences, subtle, but I was certain they would be there. It was just a matter of recognizing them. But even so I wasn't always prepared. It wasn't in me to lean back, look detached at every instance and say "Oh, interesting, so this is how Swedes deal with this." I just got unhappy and angry, reacting like what I was: A foreign worker, "fremmedarbeider", feeling insulted by what I encountered.

It took half a year and some intense reading of the local newspaper to realise that what I faced wasn't a personal affront, but a cultural difference.

Sweden is a throughly regulated country. So is Norway, so what's new, hmm? The point is - Sweden is even more so, and they take a lot more pride in their organisation and their ability to make and follow their sensible rules. There are signs everywhere, reminding all of how to organise life simpler and better for all - bikes to the left, walking to the right, don't park your bike here, smoke over there, don't walk in the ski-tracks and don't run against the common direction. Being a good little Norwegian who understands that rules are there to make life easier for all, I didn't get annoyed by their existence. What got me was when the regulations started to make things really difficult. When the nurses didn't want to let me get in line for a doctor's appointment because I had a different kind of personal number - a temporary number and not a permanent one - when I couldn't get my computer hooked up to the printer because I had no precise affiliation at the University - when I couldn't pay my rent automatically because I couldn't get the right kind of account, because I didn't...

Not that I am a stranger to bureaucracy. Far from it, Norway has its part of it, and I am kicking angrily at quite a few regulations which are going to make me hurt when I come home after this. What I am a stranger to is how I get received when I try to understand it. Even so, it took a Swede to help me understand what troubled me.

In one of the local newspapers, they had a series of interviews with local people who chose to work in Norway for a while. At the moment Swedes are in the position Norwegians were in some years ago: It's economically a good deal to work in the neighbouring country for a while. The Scandinavian countries have always had this kind of common movable workforce - I come from a long line of migrating workers. But back to the interviews. There were the normal issues - Norwegians were like this, Norwegians were like that, and yes, I could see how that would be annoying to somebody who didn't grow up in Norway and Norway really isn't perfect. And then it hit me, the comment that made me understand that what I was facing was a cultural trait, not something that happened to me, personally. "I had this problem with my identity, so I couldn't get paid, but they said 'we'll fix that.' And so it all worked out, Norwegians are good at that."

I realised, suddenly, that what I had been missing was somebody saying "we'll fix that." Or perhaps "let's see what we can do" or "call me in 10 minutes and I'll get back to you on how to deal with this". Now this may sound like common politeness, but no, it doesn't mean that Swedes are rude or unfriendly, because they are in general a lot more polite, correct and friendly than Norwegians. We are a grumpy and far too direct bunch. It's more a matter of individual expectations of agency. Norwegians believe that they can fix something if they just figure out how things connect. Swedes believe that things can be fixed by following the correct steps.

It doesn't mean that things can always be fixed by some friendly person who knows how to manipulate the rules. Sometimes you get back 10 minutes later and what you get told is "sorry, but you really need to get A, B and C first". I find that what I miss is the belief that it's possible to do something, to be sourrounded by people who expect to be able to negotiate with their environment. Or perhaps I am just homesick.

Hehe, Pattie, that's ironic! I bet it does not feel as if Norwegians are any more easy going than anybody else - from your end :)

And Luca - as you can see, Sweden is hard enough as it is, with my Norwegian background! But does this mean you're planning to apply for one of the two-year post-doc grants they are offering at HUMlab? Well, you have seen the space and how you can expect to live, so you know what you're asking for!

geirtbr - Interestingly enough, I have hear a lament over the lack of service, helpfulness and readyness to unravel problems in Scandinavia, from the same person who praised the Sovjet Union - most particularly the pre-glasnost USSR.

The experience of bureaucracy seems to be unrelated to the actual system, and more related to individual cases.

Although I am quite willing to believe Russia is worse than Scandinavia! I'd almost expect that :)

We've just been told by Dinbank that my husband's account can't have two names on it - husband & wife. Yet another complication... and the paperwork is piling up... but it's really both governments at this point. We've been on both sides of the residency/immigration issue. Having a two country family complicates things...

Mmm, I have never tried to have two names on one account. What we do (my husband and me) is to have individual accounts, while the other has the right to dispose the funds. So we have mutual access to the other's account, which works just fine. In Postbanken we both have cards in our own names connected to the same account, while the account belongs only to one of us.

I might try another bank, also. Dinbank is a net based bank, most likely designed to compete with a Swedish net-bank which was very aggressive on the Norwegian market recently. Dinbank is part of Sparebanken Øst, it's their net service, not an independent bank, as I understand it.

And this kind of cultural differences where otherwise obvious advantages have not dawned on people in some other country is pretty annoying :)

About Me

This is the journal of Torill Elvira Mortensen. I am an associate professor at the IT University of Copenhagen. The topics of my writings here are among other things media studies, reader-response theory, role-play games, Internet Culture, travel, academic weirdness and online communication - put together at random.
Google scholar page.

Personal Publication and Public Attention, Torill Elvira Mortensen (2004): "Personal Publication and Public attention", in Gurak, Laura, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff and Jessica Reyman (ed): Into the Blogosphere; Rhetoric, Community and Culture of Weblogs, at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/, University of Minnesota.

Pleasures of the Player (pdf), Torill Elvira Mortensen (2003): Pleasures of the Player; Flow and control in online games, Doctoral Dissertation Volda College and University of Bergen.

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The Gamers' Space

The Gamers' Space is a small project I am doing in the spring 2009. It includes an electronic survey, pictures of game machines of different kinds, and interviews done at The Gathering, a large LAN party in Hamar, Norway. For participation, more information, links and addresses, check The Gamers' Space.